Customer Engagement Review: The Critical Role of Health Systems in a Complex Mental Healthcare Ecosystem
The Problem
For health systems, addressing brain health, particularly in patients with serious mental illness (SMI), is both a responsibility and a strategic imperative.
Over the past few decades, the increasing demand for brain health has prompted healthcare systems to integrate and standardize multidisciplinary care services, as care for patients with SMI extends far beyond the walls of a hospital or clinic. As life science companies develop innovative treatments to address brain and behavioral health conditions, they must understand the diverse sites of care to optimize therapeutic access, ultimately enhancing patient outcomes. Given the dynamic landscape, a health systems engagement strategy is required to establish value and secure access and adoption of life-changing solutions within a complex healthcare ecosystem.
The Complex Healthcare Ecosystem for Serious Mental Illness
This mental health ecosystem is complex, siloed and scattered with patients. It also touches multiple care settings. Health systems cannot manage the full continuum of patient care alone, often relying on the extended healthcare network for support. To attend to the varied needs of patients, diverse care sites—each with unique characteristics and specialized focus—play an indispensable role.
The challenge lies in coordinating care among various providers, clinical services and community support networks. Here are some key care sites health systems must engage with to optimize outcomes for patients with SMI.
Physical Healthcare Services
Patients experiencing psychiatric crises tend to come through emergency departments and inpatient psychiatric units. Health systems can reduce the burden of disease for these patients and their systems by coordinating appropriate referrals to outpatient care (through established discharge processes) and engaging community-based providers in the transition of care.
Primary care is often the first touchpoint for patients with mental health needs and primary care providers usually serve as key players in coordinating care. Health systems can enhance the treatment journey for patients by integrating behavioral health into primary care through innovative models such as the collaborative care model (CoCM), which embeds behavioral health specialists like social workers or community health professionals within primary healthcare teams and relies on psychiatric providers as consultants.
Psychiatric and Behavioral Health Services
Access to psychiatric care and behavioral health services is critical to whole-person care; however, most psychiatric and behavioral health services occur outside of a health system. Various behavioral health systems serve as critical stakeholders. It is important to focus on inpatient, intensive outpatient, residential and partial programs that allow individuals with SMI to step down into outpatient programs.
Those outpatient clinics and community-based providers further along the value-based care continuum may apply to become Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics (CCBHCs). CCBHCs and other outpatient clinics have grown to over 500+ throughout the United States and are required to focus on accountability, access, outcomes and community impact for those patients with SMI.1 Health systems can establish relationships with these organizations to ensure a seamless continuum of care through data sharing and developing collaborative care plans.
Long-Term Care (LTC) and Behavioral Health Units in Skilled Nursing Facilities
LTC facilities have long served as an overflow for the ever-increasing population of those requiring mental health treatment, particularly for SMI. Nearly 50% of individuals receiving care within LTC institutions have a mental disorder other than dementia.2 While LTC and skilled nursing facilities have a large population of patients with mental health needs, they are under-resourced within this space. Health systems can support behavioral health integration into these facilities via psychiatric on-site visits or virtual visits and training of the full care team.
Digital and Virtual Behavioral Health Tools
Virtual care can be a game changer for mental health. Health systems can help develop and standardize digital assets and care pathways to provide behavioral health services such as telehealth, symptom tracking and prescription digital therapeutics (PDTs) to assist with managing treatment options. Additionally, behavioral health providers utilize more non–face–to–face interventions such as mobile crisis units and home-based therapy programs.
The Role of Health Systems as Coordinators and Catalysts for Change
“How do we focus on people who are the most seriously ill? We approach this by improving the capacity for primary care, bringing psychiatry into the primary care provider setting, trying to get those whose mental health is stable to return to primary care for management to expand access for those with serious mental illness to receive specialty care.” — Medical Director, Family Medicine within a large academic health system
As health systems and their leaders increasingly recognize the necessity of treating both physical and mental health with a collaborative approach, integrated and coordinated care delivery has emerged as a critical priority. For patients with SMI, every touchpoint in the care journey is an opportunity to make a difference. Health systems are uniquely positioned to innovate, collaborate and lead in mental healthcare transformation.
By establishing an integrated and patient-centered approach to care, health systems can help drive:
- Improved care coordination and enhanced team-based care
- Increased engagement and adherence to treatment plans
- Health equity for underserved populations
- Better overall patient care delivery
- Reduced hospitalizations and emergency visits
By adopting this broad population health approach, integrated behavioral care enhances coordination, reduces fragmentation and gaps in care and ensures a seamless patient experience. To optimize therapeutic access and a patient-centered approach, it is essential to deeply understand sites of care and how they work together within the broader behavioral health ecosystem.
The Solution
Petauri Kinect Paves the Way in Advancing Brain Health
At Petauri Kinect, we recognize that the management of patients with SMI and other behavioral health conditions is nonlinear and their care is often fragmented. Our deep understanding and experience allow us to navigate the diverse care settings ranging from health systems and outpatient centers to LTC institutions and CCBHCs.
By embracing collaboration with the appropriate stakeholders, Petauri Kinect can empower our life science partners with customized strategies that influence the right customer channels to build the market directly and optimize adoption. Through our multichannel approach, Petauri Kinect supports life science organizations in developing and implementing strategically tailored engagement solutions that address critical patient care priorities unique to each diverse care site. Some ways in which we have already accelerated collaboration with life sciences and health systems include new stakeholder identification and mapping, archetyping for aligned execution, development and implementation of care pathways and protocols that help shape the market before launch and targeted pull-through strategies that accelerate market adoption, advance brain health and achieve higher-quality patient care.
In the future, Petauri Kinect will post more in-depth information on this topic. We encourage you to stay tuned to learn more about our experience in optimizing brain and behavioral care within health systems.
Petauri Kinect Can Be Your Trusted Partner
Petauri Kinect is the only strategic advisory and marketing agency dedicated to health system and therapeutic area dynamics. With our proven process for uncovering opportunities, we act as an extension of your team to build markets and optimize adoption.
Reach out to our therapeutic teams here to schedule a capabilities meeting and take the next step with us!
References
- What is a CCBHC? National Council for Mental Wellbeing. Accessed April 21, 2025. https://www.thenationalcouncil.org/program/ccbhc-success-center/ccbhc-overview/
- National Coalition on Mental Health and Aging. Integrating older adult behavioral health into long-term care rebalancing. January 2017. Accessed April 14, 2025. https://www.ncmha.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/2017-NCMHA-Report-on-Integrating-Older-Adult-Behavioral-Health-into-Long-Term-Care-Rebalancing.pdf